Choosing the Wrong Niche is One Major SEO Mistake

I have been building websites for a few years now and I definitely try to avoid one major SEO mistake as I have collided with this problem in the past..Unfortunately for me, I had to learn the hard way and take the long road to learning search engine optimization and the right way to do it.

When building your first website, if you are anything like me, you will probably think that you can just slap up a website and it’ll be fine. This is not the case as one major SEO mistake can definitely cause your website to fail.

Why choosing the wrong niche is one major SEO mistake?

Choosing the wrong niche for your website is the most important beginning for any website or blog. It is very simple to make the biggest SEO mistake possible right from the beginning and brand your venture as a failure. Now I will explain why this is a massive SEO mistake that can snowball into a disaster.

The dangers of choosing the wrong niche – SEO mistake

I really think that every new Webmaster chooses the wrong niche in the beginning. Of course they learn the hard way that this is a major SEO mistake.

Choosing the wrong niche SEO mistake means:

You are targeting traffic that doesn’t exist or

There is too much competition in that niche to break into

All the SEO in the world is not going to get your traffic

There is no demand for what you are selling

People in this niche do not buy

Choosing the wrong niche can make you look like a stall selling

How to choose the right niche?

Choosing the right niche for your website or blog can be a daunting task. When I first started building websites I had no idea what I was doing. I simply thought that you could pick any niche you like and start building a website. Boy was I wrong?

Choosing the wrong niche can leave you working “until the cows come home” for no reward. A website or blog can appear lifeless if the correct niche is not selected in the first place.

You need a niche that is in demand to some extent. For example you can have extremely high demand and higher competition but there is still room for you to start a niche website. You can also have low demand ( not to low though) and no competition whatsoever. The point is that there must be someone searching for your keywords and you must be able to position yourself to get in front of these people.

When choosing a niche here are a few things that I like to look for:

A niche that is popular. If a niche is too small, you will be waiting for ever for website visitors.

Money to be made in the niche. By seeing if there are products to sell and if there is advertising in Google search. (shown below)

A topic that has a lot of keywords and people searching for it. Using the Google Keyword Tool will help you with this.

A main target keyword with a minimum of 1000 exact match searches per month.

Competition on the first page of Google for your keyword that you can beat.

A domain name with the keywords in it that is available. I like .coms.

How to come up with ideas for a niche?

Think about what you like to talk about or a hobby that you have.

Do keyword research on the Internet to see if people are interested in your topic. You can search in forums, popular products on Amazon.com, and many other ways.

Are people searching in this niche wanting to buy or are they looking for freebies?

Is there a problem that you can solve in this niche?

Search in Google and see how many ads are being displayed in the search results page. If there are a lot of ads that means it pays to be there.

If you cannot see a demand then move on.

Here is an example of ads showing in the search results:

This is a screenshot of part of my research for a new website I am creating. It is about SEO tips.

I also obviously like computers and therefore if I wanted to make a website about computer maintenance, which I know is in demand, I would start with the Google keyword tool. If I actually was interested in using computer maintenance as my main keyword, I would need to research the competition that I would be up against in Google. I would research the top 10 websites and see if I can do better.

If I see massive companies with million-dollar advertising budgets in the top 10 Google search results then I would need to drill down to a smaller and niche. I would then choose a keyword from the related keywords and move this to my main keyword and start to research that.

Example for choosing a niche and avoiding a big SEO Mistake

If you study the screenshot below, I have entered in a keyword “computer maintenance” into the Google keyword tool in my ad words account.will

Here are the steps I use to find a niche

Entering your main keyword and press search.

Go to the left column and under the heading of match types, un-tick broad and tick exact.

Now press search again.

Just above the search button there are advanced settings that you can change. For example you might want to change your location.

After you have your settings right, you will see the keyword in the top section, and other keyword ideas below.

I like to have my main keyword with 1000 or more exact monthly searches. Then I choose my related keywords from the list below and I like them to have at least 200 exact monthly searches. I also choose my categories titles from the related keywords list.

Also the related keywords can be used to find a smaller niche.

There are many common SEO mistakes that Webmasters can make, however choosing the wrong niche can really turn into an ongoing nightmare.

About Mitz

My name is Milica Pantic but everyone calls me Mitz.
…I am a computer freak but I do not always talk in tech language. Hope you enjoy my website and learn everything you need to know in an easy to understand way..Tips4pc Youtube Channel

Comments

Good post!
In the beginning I made the mistake of not searching for [exact match] So I got my hopes up, such amazing numbers. But the traffic wasn’t that amazing. That was foolish, but I learned from it.

I believe I do keyword research pretty well, but still after some time I always find out that there are some important keywords in my niche that I am not trying to rank for yet.

What this technique discounts is the fact that 20% of Google’s daily queries are new, that is, long-tail searches that haven’t been entered before, and that Google’s Adwords tool is extremely inaccurate for long-tail terms in the low thousands. Especially after the Panda updates, it’s best to focus on high-quality content with diverse keywords (like Demand Media does with ehow and other sites) and let the longtails find you.

Of course I do let the longtails find me but I am not just doing that. I have top content and definitely find it better to go and make things happen… Why wait for it? Why sit there with great content hoping some one will notice?

I agree that Google keyword tool is not great for longtail keywords but when you start ranking, Google Analytics will show you the way.. When I do get the short or longtails I optimize again to get the post set in concrete.